


slumber party

by tamerofdarkstars



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Sleepy Cuddles, The Tales Gang Adventures Together, i just really wanted to write some cuddles alright, not mustache compliant, or a floor?, technically it's a floor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 02:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamerofdarkstars/pseuds/tamerofdarkstars
Summary: Rhys glanced back at them. “Upstairs is totally gutted. No beds, not even a frame. There’s a mystery stain on the floorboards in the room at the end that I’m totally not thinking about because it’s definitely either blood or vomit, but otherwise, empty. Looks like we’re all camping out on the floor.”





	slumber party

**Author's Note:**

> catch me lying on the floor, deceased after the trailer, yet still desperately hoping for some rhyiona interaction in borderlands 3
> 
> in the meantime, have some cuddles because surprise, i'm still not over TftBl or this ship

The shack had been abandoned for ages, clearly, with its listing ramshackle walls and the thick layer of dust and sand over every surface.

A sand beetle scuttled across the floorboards and vanished beneath the couch, but Fiona barely even noticed. The place was upright, it was sort of secure, and most importantly, it was blocking that horrific shrieking wind from hurling sand in their faces.

She had sand in places human beings should not have sand. Enough said.

“I never want to see the desert again,” Sasha groaned, throwing herself onto the sagging couch. It was a sorry excuse for a living room, consisting of exactly one broken down old sofa, chewed to pieces by bugs, and what appeared to be the empty remains of an old footlocker in the corner, its door hanging open by one rusty hinge.

“I cannot believe you’re sitting on that couch,” Rhys said. Sasha lifted one hand and flipped him off. Rhys rolled his eyes at her.

Fiona examined him for a minute, checking for injuries. In her defense, she’d only rolled the Runner once and it had totally saved them from being shot, but Rhys was still moving a bit stiffer than she’d like.

“Are you ok?” she asked quietly. In the gutted kitchen, Vaughn was banging around in cupboards, tossing anything useful in a pile in the center of the room. The pile was currently very small and mostly consisted of a few empty cans and what looked like it might have once been a butter dish.

“Little stiff,” Rhys admitted, just as quietly. Fiona winced.

“Sorry about that.”

“Hey, I’m not full of holes. What’s a minor neck injury and possible permanent paralysis?”

He flashed her a grin and she rolled her eyes, thwacking him gently on the arm with the back of her hand. Rhys held her gaze for a moment longer, a heartbeat or two, before a loud crash from the kitchen broke the moment.

Vaughn poked his head around the corner. “We’re fine!” he called. Fiona shot him a thumbs up as Rhys slipped past her, heading for the stairs.

“What’re the odds these break and I come crashing down and break a limb?” he asked over his shoulder.

“High,” Sasha replied and Fiona studied the stairs.

“If you fall and break something, I promise to put you down with mercy.”

“Ha. Thanks, Fiona. Glad I can always count on you to shoot me in the head.”

“What are friends for?”

Rhys headed up the stairs, gingerly testing each rotten step as he went to make sure it wouldn’t crack beneath his weight, and vanished around the corner.

Fiona headed for Sasha, who hadn’t moved from her slump on the couch.

“You alright?” she asked and Sasha shrugged one shoulder.

“Aside from the ridiculous amount of sand I have in unspeakable places? Right as rain. You?”

“Fine. Same about the sand, though.”

“I would _kill_ a man for a bath,” Sasha groaned and Fiona sank onto the sofa next to her, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. Every muscle in her body hurt – arms stiff from gripping the steering wheel of their Runner, neck and shoulders sore from the tension of holding it steady.

The bruise she can feel blooming on her thigh from when Vaughn had crashed into her, scrambling away from a bandit with a grenade launcher.

The tiny cuts stinging on her palms from when she and Rhys had gone tumbling down the bank together as the outcropping of rocks above them had exploded.

“Same,” Fiona agreed, a beat too late. Above them, the floorboards creaked and Sasha tipped her head up to look.

“Forget the stairs, what are the odds he comes crashing through the ceiling and dies?” she asked and Fiona contemplated it.

“High,” she said and they laughed.

Vaughn had finished in the kitchen and was walking around the corner, arms full of things he’d scavenged from the cupboards.

“Not much useful in there, honestly,” he said, dumping his armload of stuff in the corner and dusting his hands on his pants. “Place has been pretty picked clean, but I think I can use some of this at least.”

Joining the cans and the butter dish were the hollowed out shell of an old toaster and a large chipped platter with a big red bird emblazoned on it.

Vaughn beamed down at the plate, hands on his hips. “Nice, huh?”

“Not the word I’d choose, but sure.”

An unsettling crack from above their heads made them all look up, and it was Fiona who dragged herself off the couch to head for the stairs.

“Rhys,” she called upstairs. “Get down here before you fall through the ceiling!”

There was a pause, then a few creaks as Rhys’ footsteps strained the swollen floorboards. He appeared around the corner at the top of the stairs.

“Yes, dear,” he said, the corner of his mouth tilting upwards in a crooked half-smile. Fiona’s heart skipped, despite the word obviously being a joke, and she turned away quickly, walking back across the living room.

After a moment, she heard Rhys’ footsteps behind her as he came down the stairs.

“Bad news, gang,” he said as Fiona dropped back down onto the couch next to Sasha. Rhys had his hands on his hips, a rueful twist to his lips, when he suddenly spotted the plate. He pointed at it immediately. “Holy shit. Dibs.”

“Screw you, bro, I found it!” Vaughn said, grabbing the bird plate and clutching it to his chest.

“What’s the bad news?” Sasha interrupted them before they could start arguing in earnest, and Rhys glanced back at them.

“Upstairs is totally gutted. No beds, not even a frame. There’s a mystery stain on the floorboards in the room at the end that I’m totally not thinking about because it’s definitely either blood or vomit, but otherwise, empty. Looks like we’re all camping out on the floor.”

Fiona closed her eyes briefly, the disappointment sharp but not unexpected. It would have been nice to have at least some kind of bed, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t slept in worse conditions. At least they were out of the wind.

As though her thoughts had conjured it, a gust of angry wind rattled the little shack on its foundations, sending an eerie whistle through the slats in the boards and making the little hairs on the back of Fiona’s neck stand up on end. Somewhere in the distance, a Skag shrieked out a muffled barking sort of cry.

“Ok. I’m officially creeped out,” Rhys said. Vaughn stood up from where he’d been crouched next to his pile of scavenged goods and stretched, reaching both arms above his head and going up on his tiptoes.

“Should we try and find something to eat?” he asked, glancing around at all of them. “I think there’s probably a Skag or two around we could try and--”

“Nope,” Rhys said immediately. He sank down onto the ground right where he’d been standing and peeled off his shoes, one after the other, chucking them lazily into the corner. “You go ahead and scrounge up some roadkill if you want. I’m going to bed.”

Fiona peeked at his socks. They were bright aqua this time, with little swirls of green and splashes of color that she was pretty sure were supposed to be fish. Ocean socks.

She smiled.

Vaughn shrugged. “Bed does sound good. Girls?”

“Shut up, I’m already sleeping.” Sasha waved her hand listlessly in his direction, not even bothering to open her eyes. Rhys squinted at her, tugging at the knot at his throat to loosen his tie.

“You’re gonna screw up your neck if you sleep like that.”

“What are you, a doctor?”

Rhys tugged on the end of his tie and the silky fabric slithered out from under his collar with a soft _thwip_. He wrapped it around his knuckles over and over in a neat little loop. “No, but I’ve got an entire lifetime of experience in falling asleep in weird places.”

“It’s true.” Vaughn grinned, dropping down beside Rhys and flopping backwards, kicking his shoes off and tugging off his belt. “Wanna know what happens when you fall asleep on a stack of Echoes and drool all over them? Because this one time when we were interns—”

Rhys shoved at Vaughn, who rolled away from him snickering.

Sasha groaned and rolled her body forward, sliding off the couch and onto the floor. She laid there for a moment, not moving, before she shoved herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her eyes.

Fiona bent and undid her own shoes, shoving them off to the side and sliding off the couch onto her knees. She plucked her hat off her head and unbuttoned her jacket, planning on using it as a makeshift blanket, as Sasha reached up behind her and pulled one of the thin threadbare cushions off the couch.

She threw it at Rhys, who was busy fumbling with his own jacket buttons and didn’t see it until it hit him square in the face, sending up a puff of dust.

“Sasha!” he protested, coughing her name and shoving the cushion away from him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you not want something to use as a pillow? I’ll take that back then.”

Rhys flipped her off with the hand that wasn’t currently still trapped in the sleeve of his sport coat. He tugged it the rest of the way off and Fiona looked, just for an instant, eyes flicking from the curve of his jaw down to where his tattoos vanished beneath his shirt down even further to where his undershirt had ridden up, the stripe of pale skin stark against his dark pants, before she turned her attention back to the couch.

Focus, Fiona.

She grabbed the other two cushions and dragged them off the couch, forcing herself not to look at whatever abominations were festering beneath them, and shoved them into the center of their little circle.

“Looks like we’re getting cozy,” Vaughn said cheerfully. He’d peeled his shirt off for some unknown reason, wrapping it around his shoulders like a cape, and he grabbed one of the cushions, tucking it back under his head and settling backwards. Sasha lunged for the second one, snatching it up and scrambling towards Vaughn.

“Share some of that body heat, bandit king,” she said, flopping down next to him.

Vaughn laughed. “At your service.”

Fiona and Rhys eyed the last remaining cushion, then looked at each other. He raised an eyebrow, a grin already tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Hands to yourself,” Fiona said finally, grabbing the cushion. She shoved it up next to Sasha’s, ignoring the way her sister and Vaughn were smirking at each other. They didn’t know anything. Rhys snorted.

“Hands to myself? Keep your knee out of my kidneys and we’ll be just fine.”

Fiona glared at him, settling back against the cushion as Rhys scooted over beside her. He lay against the cushion, reaching up and rubbing at his eyes.

For a moment, silence settled down on the group as comfortable as a blanket. Sasha was warm against Fiona’s arm on her left and Rhys was a furnace on her right.

“Hey buddy,” Vaughn said, voice hushed. The room had dimmed considerably as they’d lost the sun, sending smudged shadows sliding up the walls. “Got a map?”

Rhys shifted next to her, lifting his arm straight out in front of him, palm pointed at the ceiling. Fiona turned her head in time to see his eye spark, soft gold in the twilight, and his palm flickered to life, sending an even glow spilling up onto the ceiling.

A hologram map of Pandora spun above them and Fiona stared at her planet, caught for a moment in the computerized colors. Rhys’ fingers twitched and a glowing dot appeared on the map, the planet halting its rotation suddenly, holding still for a breath before it zoomed in, dropping as if in free-fall towards the dot.

It pulsed, steady, above a small patch of desert.

“There we are,” Rhys said quietly.

“You’re tracking us?” Sasha asked, voice slow and tired, and Rhys shook his head, causing the cushion to flex.

“Nah. That’s me. My cybernetics.”

He grinned, a flash of white in the dark, and his fingers twitched again. The dot blinked twice before bursting out in a rush of data, streaming graphs and lines and numbers almost faster than Fiona’s eyes could follow.

“Diagnostics,” Rhys said, before the data stream vanished as quickly as he’d opened it.

“Zoom out a bit?” Vaughn asked and Rhys zoomed the map.

“Looks like we’ve got our path out in the morning.”

The map rotated, blinking a pathway through the rocks. On its other side was a familiar symbol.

“There’s a Catch-A-Ride,” Rhys said, and the map zoomed to hover over it. “We can snag a vehicle to replace the one Fiona ran off a cliff today.”

“Hey, next time I won’t save your life,” Fiona said, nudging him in the side. He nudged her back, bumping their shoulders together, and the map wobbled above them.

He went still, steadying his arm, but he didn’t move away. Neither did Fiona. Their shoulders pressed together, bleeding warmth.

“Great,” Vaughn said, and Rhys closed his hand into a fist, the holographic map disappearing as though he’d grabbed the world and hid it beneath his fingers.

There was a beat of silence, broken suddenly by a snuffled snore. Sasha was asleep, nose pressed into Vaughn’s shoulder, mouth open.

Fiona bit back a snicker, but that seemed to be their cue. They settled down, without speaking, coming to a silent decision to try and get some sleep. Fiona shifted, curling her body so her back was pressed against Sasha, shamelessly stealing her sister’s warmth, and let her eyes sink shut.

The floor wasn’t comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly wasn’t terrible. The cushion pillows helped, sad and limp as they were. Fiona let out a long, slow, soft breath and tried to relax.

Beside her, Rhys was shifting around, clearly trying to do it carefully, but not doing a great job at it. She cracked one eye open, watching him as he pouted and wiggled around, trying to get comfortable.

She poked him in the shoulder. He turned his head to look at her. Fiona gave him the flattest look she could muster and Rhys shrugged, his answering grin small and sheepish. She rolled her eyes, but didn’t bother to hide her own tiny smile.

“Settle down,” she said, voice soft. “You’ll wake Sasha.”

Rhys shifted again, rolling up on his shoulder so he was on his side facing her. He stuck his tongue out at her, still grinning, and Fiona resisted the urge to stick her own out back at him.

“Do your employees know you’re such a loser?” she whispered and Rhys snorted.

“How dare you.” He scooted a shade closer to her, lowering his voice even softer. “I’ll have you know I’m a highly respected CEO.”

“Highly respected? I thought we decided not to lie to each other.”

“Ouch. I’m fragile, Fiona, why can’t you understand that?”

“Guys.” Vaughn sounded infinitely weary from Sasha’s other side. “For fuck’s sake.”

Fiona and Rhys locked eyes for half a second before they both dissolved into breathless giggles, bending in towards each other helplessly as they tried to smother the noise.

Rhys’ forehead bumped against hers, and when she opened her eyes, he was grinning at her, eyes crinkled at the corners, impossibly soft and warm and fond.

Panic iced down her spine and Fiona felt the tips of her ears go hot. She looked away, dropping her eyes from his, and after a moment, he shifted a bit, putting some distance between them.

Damn it. Fiona had no idea how she was supposed to go about something like this.

It had taken her months to even work up the nerve to admit to herself that just maybe she felt something warm and twisty and altogether terrifying for Rhys, let alone admitting it to the man himself.

It made her itch, made her question her words, her expressions, terrified she was going to accidentally give something away. Terrified that she’d let her eyes linger for too long, or let some of the warmth she felt in her chest bleed out through her smile, and then he’d know and she was going to embarrass herself and lose her best friend on top of it.

Because Rhys was, for better or worse, her closest friend, outside Sasha. Not that she didn’t love Vaughn too, but it was Rhys that she found herself gravitating towards. It was Rhys who would shove his work aside and eat takeout with her, sitting on the floor cross-legged in the middle of his office, waving chopsticks around and talking at light speed about whatever newest bit of gadgetry he’d dragged out of Atlas R&D.

It was Rhys’ name she hovered over in the middle of the night, lying miles away and bored and lonely and frustrated, a single touch away from lighting up her HUD with a call and hearing his voice.

Fiona wanted to share things with him, stupid insignificant things that she’d see during the day, or that she’d find hidden in some bandit safe in some godforsaken ramshackle town. She wanted to hear about his meetings, the things he did in the Atlas headquarters all day, the weird things the robots had done.

She was gone. And sooner or later, she knew, something was going to have to break.

Or did it? If there was one thing Fiona was great at, it was pretending like everything was fine. Maybe she could just go on like that forever.

She chanced a glance back up at Rhys’ face and caught him studying her. He gave her a tiny half-smile, a micro-shrug.

_Sorry_ , he mouthed.

Fiona shook her head, just barely. She tapped herself in the chest – _not you, it’s me._

Rhys frowned, confused, and Fiona chewed her bottom lip, trying to think of how to explain herself without explaining herself.

Sasha’s soft snores continued peaceably behind her and on Sasha’s other side, Vaughn rolled over onto his back.

Finally she just shook her head, readjusting her head on the couch cushion, and closed her eyes.

After a moment, Rhys let out a soft breath. There was some shuffling and then he went still next to her.

She cracked her eyes open, squinting through the gloom, and saw that he’d draped his suit jacket over his waist and closed his eyes.

Fiona looked at the brush of his eyelashes against his cheek and squeezed her eyes shut.

Sleep took a long time to find her.

-

The sun woke Fiona first, peeking through the gaps in the walls and painting itself across her face.

She was warm and comfortable and the last thing she wanted to do was move. She ducked her head away from the sunlight, burying her face in the nearest thing she could find, curling her fingers into the fabric of her blanket.

Wait.

Fiona opened her eyes.

Sunlight was streaming into the little shack, filling it with light and she blinked, squinting.

During the night, the four of them had morphed into a pile of limbs and jackets and couch cushions, tangled up in each other in a comfortable knot. Sasha was snoring into Fiona’s back, still completely passed out, her arm tight around Fiona’s waist and when she craned her neck to look, Fiona could see that Vaughn had somehow turned himself around completely in the night and was now lying the opposite direction, one arm hooked around Sasha’s leg like a kid clutching for a stuffed animal.

There was an arm flung over her body, she realized then, legs tangled with her own. She studied Rhys’ throat where his collar hung open, looked at her own hands crushed between their chests, fingers curled into the front of his shirt, then let her eyes flick to his face.

He was still asleep, jaw slack, breaths deep and even. Sometime in the night he’d ended up on his side, facing her, and Fiona--

Fiona had apparently sleepily taken advantage, practically crawling up on top of him to get as close as she could, slotting against him like they’d been designed to mold together.

She should move.

But she was comfortable. And no one else was awake yet.

They needed their sleep.

… Right?

Perfectly aware she was making excuses, Fiona settled back down gingerly, trying not to disturb the rest of the pile.

She closed her eyes, letting herself drift as her heart thudded steadily between them.

Fiona was just sinking back into that pleasant gray between sleep and waking when suddenly Sasha let out an almighty squawk of horror and jerked, her entire body flailing and sending a spasm through the entire pile. Vaughn yelped almost simultaneously, and Fiona bolted upright and snapped her arm out, gun in hand, pointing vaguely in the direction of the noise before she’d even had time to think.

She trained the gun on Vaughn, her brain trying to catch up to her arm, as Sasha burst out laughing.

“You ass!” her sister cried, shoving at Vaughn with her foot. “You jammed your foot in my face!”

Vaughn was laughing so hard he was having trouble forming words. “Accident!” he wheezed, batting her feet away.

Fiona felt the tension drain from her shoulders, letting her gun arm dip and her shoulders slump.

“I hate all of you,” said a voice from just behind Fiona’s ear.

Rhys looked bedraggled and sleep-rumpled, hair gel giving up some of its hold on his hair so that a few curls sprang away from his head in wavy clumps.

Fiona bit back a smile. She had this insane urge to reach up and tug on a piece of hair, just to watch it curl back in on itself. What would his hair look like completely un-styled?

He blinked slowly, seeming to realize she was sitting there, and smiled, still a bit drowsy. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, sitting too close in the early morning sunlight. After a moment, Rhys seemed to realize exactly how close they were and he cleared his throat, a light flush creeping across the bridge of his nose.

“Guess you kind of had to worry about my hands after all,” he said, then immediately winced. “Uh. Pretend that came out a lot smoother than it actually did.”

Fiona snorted. “At least I didn’t knee you in the kidney?”

“There’s always next time.”

The thought of a _next time_ made something warm settle in Fiona’s chest and she watched Rhys realize exactly what he’d insinuated, enjoying the way his face contorted again with embarrassment.

“Uh,” he began, then cleared his throat. “You know.”

“Next time,” Fiona said quietly. She smiled, a bit hesitant, and the embarrassment faded from Rhys’ expression. He reached up to run his fingers through his hair, falling back on the familiar nervous habit, but the moment his fingers touched his head, a horrified expression crossed his face.

“Oh my god, my hair,” he breathed and Fiona burst out laughing.

_Whump_! A cushion hit her in the shoulder and she batted it away instinctively, sending it slumping back towards Sasha, who was grinning.

“Are you two gonna be gross over there all day, or can we get moving? I want to eat.”

Fiona scowled at her, but Sasha looked completely unapologetic. Traitor. Rhys snorted.

“You sure you wanna antagonize her, Sash? She did almost shoot Vaughn in the head already this morning.”

He shifted behind her, pulling in his long legs and getting to his feet. A touch – fleeting, barely a brush, but definitely on purpose – of his hand against her shoulder and then he was gone, digging through the pile of stuff Vaughn had pulled from the kitchen cupboards.

Fiona took the opportunity to slug Sasha in the shoulder. Sasha went for her immediately, digging her fingers into Fiona’s side right where she knew she was the most ticklish and Fiona scrambled away.

Sasha rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot,” she whispered, jerking her head in Rhys’ direction. Rhys was squinting into the bottom of a rusty saucepan, tugging morosely at a strand of hair.

“Would you shut up? I’m pacing myself,” Fiona hissed back.

“You’re driving us all crazy is what you’re doing!”

“Nah, bro, you look fine. Just slap a little extra gel in it.” Vaughn slapped Rhys on the back.

Rhys yanked on a curl, stretching it out before letting it bounce back towards his skull. “I’m going to shave my head.”

Fiona rolled her eyes and stood up, dusting off her pants. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said and Rhys pouted at her. Sasha began to gather up the couch cushions, half-heartedly chucking them back at the sofa one at a time.

Fiona crouched in front of Rhys and, before she could think better of it, reached up and swept her hand through his hair, brushing it all back out of his eyes.

“See?” she said, quietly. “Good as new.”

Rhys stared at her, mouth half-open like he’d been about to speak but had forgotten every word he’d ever known.

His hair was soft beneath her fingers, despite a few pieces still stiff with yesterday’s hair gel. She swallowed and let her hand fall away, dropping it back to her side.

“Fiona...” Rhys began, voice low, but Fiona panicked, jackknifing back to her feet.

“We should get going,” she said, stepping around him, looking around the room frantically for her hat. She spotted it sitting on the arm of the couch and grabbed it, cramming it onto her head and tugging the brim down low, bending down and snatching her shoes off the floor.

“Fi, wait--”

But she was already crossing the living room, heading for the door. Sasha and Vaughn had already stepped out into the sunshine, and she could hear the sounds of their voices over the early morning screeching of the Rakks. If she didn’t acknowledge it, nothing bad could happen. Right?

“Fiona!” Rhys had scrambled to his feet, and now took two large steps towards her, catching her wrist before she could make it around the corner into the entrance way.

She stopped, heart thudding. There was a long pause, a tense drawn out moment where neither one of them moved, where Fiona barely breathed.

Then, to her surprise, Rhys let her go.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and took a step backwards. There was an extremely awkward silence.

“I better...” Rhys gestured towards the door, stepping around her and ducking out into the morning sunshine. Fiona tipped her head back and groaned softly.

What had that been? Had he been about to tell her he knew? Had he always known, or had she just given it away this morning? More importantly, why had he backed off? He’d been so desperate to get away from her, he’d walked outside without his shoes.

Fiona squeezed her eyes shut, not sure if she was more angry with Rhys or herself.

“Damn it,” she muttered and followed him outside.


End file.
